


life sized ghosts

by BooyahFordhamYacht



Series: don't know if you mean everything to me(chost oneshots) [1]
Category: Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live RPF, Weekend Update (SNL)
Genre: Angst, Angsty Colin, Colin Gets Drunk, Colin Whump, Colin and Kate are Besties, Colin is Lonely, Drunk Colin, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hammered Colin, Light Angst, M/M, Protective Michael, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 17:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17268275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooyahFordhamYacht/pseuds/BooyahFordhamYacht
Summary: Colin gets drunk and says too much. Michael has a lot to say and nothing to say it with.Or, they're very soft for each other and I've truly gone down the Weekend Update rabbit hole. This fandom is TOO small(six fics as of upload) and I'm honestly just here to fix that.





	life sized ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> a several-week-long weekend update binge and a single sitting of angsty music and writing has led me to sin with more rpf!! love this for me.
> 
> anyways, enjoy! leave a comment and let me know what you thought/if you want more chost content.

His ninth drink is four too many and finally Colin lets his head loll back against the couch, the whiskey in his glass sloshing over the rim onto white fabric. He doesn’t find it in him to care. 

 

Four am on a Wednesday is not the best time to be in the SNL office. Most of the saner ones make it home by two, latest, Colin usually among them. The only people here at this hour are Pete, who claims he works best in the wee hours of the morning, and Kate, who tends to fall asleep at her desk or on her couch. It’s usually Colin’s job to wake her up before he leaves for the night or, if she’s really out, just carry her down to a cab and take her back to her apartment. It’s become so much a habit that she’s given him a spare key so he doesn’t have to wake her up. Michael is sometimes here, because he’s head writer and so full of ideas, of creativity, that it pours from him all the time. 

 

_ Michael _ . 

 

Colin thinks too much about Michael. Michael, who is his cohost and his best friend(aside from Kate, but don’t tell her) and far too much more than that for Colin to ever be honest with himself. Michael, who is probably asleep in his bed halfway across town, completely unaware that Colin is sitting by the light of a single lamp in his office, drinking himself into oblivion because he can’t stop thinking about the man who has become more important to him than anyone else in his life. 

 

Michael is so much funnier than Colin, so much more comfortable with being in front of the camera, so much better at playing their chemistry to his advantage, so much better at playing Colin. Michael is hard to host with, because Colin laughs so hard he can’t breathe and then it’s his turn and he trips his words and giggles like a schoolboy when one of his jokes earns him a laugh or a snort from the man beside him. 

 

But Michael is also so  _ easy  _ to host with, because even when Colin fucks up and no one laughs, Michael does, or snorts and shakes his head like he can’t believe the audience doesn’t find Colin funny. Colin likes to pretend that’s what he’s thinking when he does that, and Colin likes to pretend that Michael finds him as funny as he finds Michael. Michael does it all so effortlessly, like talking to a room full of people and cameras streaming to ten million people doesn’t freak him out even the littlest bit, and even when he fucks up or Colin does, he plays it off in a way that’s somehow funnier than the original joke. 

 

When Colin knows that the cameras are only on Michael, and Michael is focused on the cue cards, he gets to stare. Colin drinks in the view of the man beside him, laughs at his jokes, blushes when Michael jokes about Colin or giggles at his own goofy puns.

 

Leslie flirts with Colin and secretly, Colin drinks in the way that Michael reacts, finds himself watching Michael’s little side glances and eyerolls and wishing that it was more than just reacting to Leslie being ridiculous, wishing that Michael was jealous of the way that Leslie unabashedly hits on Colin.

 

Colin loves Michael. He doesn’t talk about it. The only one who knows is Kate, but she knows everything and she’d never speak of it. 

 

Colin loves Michael, and goes home alone to an empty apartment and a cold bed every night, so he drinks the rest of the whiskey still in his glass, glances unaffected at the stain on the couch, and gets up to pour himself more.

 

Or, he thought he got up.

 

Because suddenly he’s laying on the floor, looking at the light seeping in from the gap between the door and the old carpeting. His hand stings, he realizes once he catches his bearings, and he manages to deduce that the shattered glass no longer in his palm is what made him bleed.

 

Colin blinks. And then he’s dreaming, because Michael is opening the door and frowning down at Colin, who’s still flat on the ground. He’s dreaming as Michael drops down beside him and places a hand on his back. And then he’s not really dreaming, is he, because Michael’s actually here and the dull throbbing in his ears finally fades. 

 

“-esus Christ, Colin, what the fuck? Are you okay? What the fuck, man?” Michael frets, holding Colin’s bloody hand in his, staring at him.

 

Anger at some unknown wrong floods Colin, and he sits up, pulling away from Michael. Far too fast, and he wobbles before catching something like balance. “M’ fine!” he grumbles. 

 

Michael holds his hands up in surrender. He sighs, pity seeping from him, and watches Colin warily. “You’re bleeding, okay? Let me just-” He reaches for Colin’s hand again, but Colin yanks it away.

 

“No! You can’t jusssssss… come in here and  _ help  _ me like you give two fucks,” and Colin can hear how badly he’s slurring his words, but he’s on a roll now and doesn’t care. “And then turn around and leave me alone and… and  _ cold  _ all the time. It’s mean. You’re mean, Che.” Colin points an accusing finger, and wavers a little more as sitting up becomes more difficult.

 

“Colin, I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re really drunk, maybe you should just go to bed, okay?” Michael offers, this time not attempting to reach towards Colin. Colin shakes his head, a movement which almost causes him to fall back over. 

 

“Thats- that’s the whole THING, dude, okay? I don’t fuckin wan… wanna go to bed alone, because you’re so fuckin,” Colin just gestures at a very confused Michael here. “YOU, and all I’ve ever wanted was to be around you and  _ fuck _ , man, I don’t wanna be-” he hiccups here, “ _ alone  _ all the fuckin time, okay?” He’s not crying, he’s not, but he’s something close to it and Michael’s heart aches for him. 

 

Michael nods. “Okay,” he reaches for Colin, gently, slowly, and Colin is too drunk and emotional and dizzy to protest again. “Okay.” Michael manages to get Colin up onto the couch and, once he’s certain Colin won’t topple off, disappears to the bathroom.

 

Colin, exhausted, doesn’t speak as Michael sits beside him and cleans his hand with a damp paper towel. He doesn’t do anything but wince as Michael pulls a shard of glass from his palm, and Michael watches him with gentle concern. 

 

It is when Michael is carefully wrapping gauze from the first aid kit around his hand that Colin speaks. It’s a whisper, but Michael hears it in the silence of Colin’s office. 

 

“Why don’t you love me?” The heartbroken whisper hangs heavy in the breaths between them, and though Michael can feel Colin’s eyes on him, he doesn’t look up at him. His fingers still on the bandage for only a moment before he continues wrapping, focusing intensely on the gauze. 

 

Silence follows them down to the cab, where Colin falls asleep before the lights of the SNL offices have disappeared in the rearview. 

 

Michael watches over Colin for the duration of the ride to Michael’s apartment, and, figuring that waking him would be more work than carrying him, heaves the smaller man into his arms and manages to get him settled in Michael’s bed. 

 

Michael sets out water and Tylenol on the table beside Colin for the morning, with a Post-It that just says  _ Drink  _ **_all_ ** _ of this and take these. -M _

 

Restless, Michael turns on a hockey game he’d had recorded. Halfway through the first period, he realizes he hasn’t been watching at all. Michael sighs and drops his head into his hands. 

 

_ Why don’t you love me?  _ Colin had whispered, desperate, heartbroken, hurting, and Michael had done nothing. Said nothing, like the coward he is. Maybe because he’s terrified. Maybe because Colin had been absolutely hammered, and there’s just no way he meant it. Or maybe because the very idea that  _ Colin  _ might love him was too incredible for Michael to fathom.

 

Watching Colin sleep on the cab ride home had done nothing but reassure Michael that he was absolutely, totally, irreversibly  _ fucked _ , because he wanted nothing more than to wake Colin up and tell him that he did love him, that it broke his heart to see Colin so damaged, so vulnerable. 

 

Finding Colin on the floor of his office, drunk beyond reason and bloody had been… awful. Just to see him so clearly hurting, and because of Michael, was more than Michael’s heart could bear. 

 

Finally, Michael falls asleep, slanted uncomfortably on the couch. He dreams of bloody Colin and heartwrenching questions and wakes to a text from Kate. 

 

_ Colin okay?  _ She asks. He tells her not to worry, he’s fine now and checks the message he’d sent her to remind himself of what he said. 

 

In the cab last night, Michael had thought to text her, just a simple  _ Colin very drunk, tell Lorne we’re both out sick. Be back for dress on Saturday. _

 

Not enough to make her worry too much, but enough that she knows something’s up. In their four or so years as Update cohosts, neither of them had missed so much as a reading, but Michael is pretty sure Colin won’t be in any condition to do much of anything for a while. 

 

He’s right. 

 

The pills are gone around nine when Michael peeks in on him, the water glass half empty. There’s vomit in the toilet(thank God) and Colin is passed out again. 

 

Michael watches him sleep for a while from the doorway, and then refills the glass of water, lays out a clean change of clothes for him and lets him sleep. 

 

It’s well past noon when he starts to hear Colin stir and the toilet flush, and so he starts a fresh pot of coffee and a massive plate of bacon. 

 

Michael may not know much about being honest about his feelings, but he knows hungover Colin well enough to know that the man can eat his bodyweight in bacon after a proper night out. 

 

Unsurprisingly, Colin surfaces when the smell of bacon starts to waft across Michael’s tiny little one-bedroom. 

 

He’s in an old college sweatshirt of Michael’s, which is too big in the sleeves, and Michael’s sweatpants, which, despite Colin’s best attempt at cuffing, still hang far too low and drag on the floor. 

 

Colin sets the empty water glass down on the counter, sits down across from Michael, and drops his head to the countertop.

 

Colin doesn’t ask, and Michael knows he’ll more than likely sit there in silence until he finds the energy to get himself coffee. So Michael gets up, refills the glass, serves Colin the bacon, and makes Colin coffee exactly how he knows Colin likes it.

 

Michael sits back down with his own coffee, and neither of them speak until half the bacon is gone and Colin’s emptied the mug. 

 

“Thank you,” Colin says, drawing Michael’s gaze from the window. “Sorry about the vomit.”

 

Michael shrugs. “Happens. How’s your hand?” and he hopes that’s enough, because what he really wants to say is  _ It’s okay. I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. _

 

Colin fiddles with the bandage and his shrug matches Michael’s. 

 

“It’s, uh, it’s fine.” Colin mumbles, suddenly shameful.

 

Michael wants to say something, because as long as he’s known Colin, the man has never blacked out, and so he  _ knows  _ that Colin remembers everything from last night and he knows that Colin’s overthinking, as he always does. 

 

But the words won’t come out, and so they sit in silence as Colin finishes the bacon. Colin is the one to finally break it. “I’m, uh, really sorry… about last night, And for what I said to you. You’re not mean, and I’m just… sorry, dude.”

 

Michael nods. 

 

“I do love you.”

 

Colin chokes on his coffee, and when he stops coughing, stares at Michael like he’s grown three heads. “What?!”  

 

“I do. Love you. And I am just so sorry that I ever made you feel so alone,” Michael is, despite this very sudden act of bravery, a coward at heart, and he can’t look at Colin, can’t watch rejection. 

 

But it is too silent, and so Michael  _ has  _ to look at Colin, and when he does, Colin’s got that stupid, shit-eating grin on his face, and despite himself, Michael finds himself smiling too. Grinning, ear to ear, they stare across the table at each other like idiots. 

 

There’s no rush to each other’s arms, no climactic meeting in the middle of Michael’s kitchen. There’s just Colin and Michael in the aftermath of something like a revelation, drinking coffee at the kitchen counter like the world will wait for them.

 

Despite the coffee, they’re both still exhausted, and between them happens a moment of tacit agreement. Without speaking, without touching, they walk back into Michael’s bedroom and fall asleep.

  
  


They wake up not quite touching, but close enough that Colin can feel Michael’s breath on his eyelashes before he opens his eyes. 

 

When he does, he’s staring right into Michael’s. 

 

He smiles, warm and kind. “Hi,” he whispers, watching the way the sides of Michael’s eyes crinkle up as he grins.

 

“Hey.” With the liquid gold of 5pm filtering in through open curtains, Colin closes the distance and presses his lips to Michael’s. 

  
There’s no fireworks, per se, but it’s the kind of thing that just  _ clicks _ , like that final puzzle piece, and Colin’s soul sings in his chest. For all the cold, lonely nights, he’s now so unbelievably grateful. Tangled here in the early evening, bathing in sunlight, Colin is warmer than he’s ever been.


End file.
